


10,000 Miles

by Evablue



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Post-Canon, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 21:45:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12177120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evablue/pseuds/Evablue
Summary: Bellamy Blake has mourned Clarke Griffin for six years. Now, back on Earth, he hoped the act of burying her body would give him closure. Instead, Bellamy gets pulled further and further into a tidal wave of grief. How can he ever get beyond the loss of Clarke, knowing everything they could have had? But somewhere out in the universe a separate plan - one he holds the key to completing - has been formulated.How far would Bellamy go to make it right? Is there way?





	10,000 Miles

**Author's Note:**

> This timeline diverges from the original, and will be explained in the earlier chapters of the story.
> 
> I'm looking for a beta reader.
> 
> Does anyone know how to stop all this annoying extra spacing without having to go through and delete all the extra little html p things it puts in when going from rich to here.

_And in my dreams, I meet the ghosts of all the people who have come and gone  
Memories, they seem to show up so quick but they leave you far too soon_

 

**_2,225 days after Praimfaya, Ark Station_ **

Bellamy peers down at the glow of the Earth from the overlook, small – but expanding – patches of lush green overcrowded by the surrounding dark, brown and lifeless land around it. But, each month that has passed since they hit the magic five year mark has seen more signs of regeneration sprout up along the globe. The smoldering fog and yellow glean covering the Earth had begun to dissipate in patches, giving view to spots of blue oceans. 

He presses his right palm against the cold glass of the window and shudders.

“You okay?” Raven asks from behind him, as she comes to stand at his left. He can feel her staring hard at him, assessing, as he continues to look down at the Earth. “You don't look like someone who is about to get out of this tin can.”

His only response is a grunt, letting the silence envelope them, just the buzz of the Ark station engines surrounding them. Raven gives him the space, mute next to him waiting until he's ready.

When he does finally speak it isn't about the sooty taste in his mouth, or about how his nightmares had been back in full force since Raven declared a month ago they would be finally back on Earth in 30 days. Besides, she knows already. They all know, averting their eyes over the breakfast table, trying to pretend for his benefit they don't hear his mumbles, gasps and shouts breaking the quiet of the night. 

Instead, he says, “It's been over six years since we both stood in this exact spot and agreed we were going to find a way to do this.”

 _Without her_ , he adds to himself. But after all this time Raven is pretty good at knowing what he means between the lines.

He sees Raven's soft smile out of the corner of his eye. “And now we're gonna go home.”

“Yeah,” Bellamy agrees, but the words are flat. “Home.”

“Octavia's down there waiting for you, Bellamy,” Raven reminds him, but that's already been on his mind, too.

“I know that.”

He's tried closing his eyes in his room at night, blankets tucked up to his chin, and picture his sister's bright smile and flowing dark hair. Imagines her six years older and wiser, how the little furrow that she gets above her nose when she frowns might have created lines. He dreams up a universe where she's the strong, but compassion, leader of the clans- overseeing her people with a care and diligence he had fumbled to master during his tenure on Earth. 

The fantasy helps his breath even out, lets him drift off into a slumber at ease and kindling a spark of hope at the thought of going back to Earth and seeing his sister. But his dreams without him to steer the ship circle back to darker places, to blackened lagoons and bottomless, dank water.

His sister's smiling face twists until its oozing out pockets of pus, eyes clouded over white as she gasps and begs for his help. He tries to reach her, to grab her hands because she's in arms reach in front of him but he only can ever graze her fingertips, as she coughs and sputters until she collapses on the ground.

That's when he can finally reach her, cradle her in his arms and cry over her body. But its not Octavia who is in his arms when he looks down, not Octavia who is covered in welts and boils, her tan skin a canvas of sticky wounds.

It's light, sun colored hair and porcelain skin, a body that is soft where Octavia's is hard. 

It's Clarke. 

And her blue, piercing eyes are the ones covered in the white film even as they peer up at him with menace and condemnation. She moves a welt covered hand to the side of his face, her fingertips painful as they press hard into his jaw and cheek.

“You left me behind,” she wheezes, each breath a struggle. “You left me behind.”

And that's when he wakes up, shouting Clarke's name or gasping for air, his body and blankets covered in a sheen of sweat as his heart stutters to get his breathing back to normal. 

Now, he tries to go to bed with his mind blank, willing himself to push out all memories and thoughts about Clarke or Octavia. But they still find him, seeking him out in his fitful dreams to twist them into nightmares. 

“Bellamy…” Raven touches a hand to his elbow, breaking into his thoughts and turning him to face her. She's frowning, her brown eyes shining with concern. “I’m worried about you. We all are. You haven’t struggled like this in a couple of years now. Sometimes it’s like…” Raven bites her lip.

“Like what?” Bellamy barks, yanking his elbow away from Raven and turning back to look at the Earth. 

“Sometimes it’s like those first few months up in space with you, all over again,” Raven presses on, moving so she is standing in front of him - blocking the Earth. “Yeah, you bark your orders, and you spend 10 hours a day doing whatever needs to get done and you show up to all the meals but you’re not here.” Raven let’s her words sink in, scanning his face to see if he’s listening to her. “And you’re not sleeping again. You spend more time pacing the halls back and forth at night than you do in your bed.”

“What, you’d rather hear me screaming?” Bellamy hisses, lowering his voice and leaning forward so Raven and him are eye to eye. 

“I want you to talk to me, to talk to us, Bellamy,” Raven says softly. “I want to help you.”

Bellamy feels his hackles being raised, defensiveness turning him cruel. “Huh? Is that what you want? You wanna join me, help tire me out?” He watches Raven flinch. “Because that ship sailed a long time ago, don’t you think? I mean, what would Murphy say?”

_Raven’s in his room, her long dark hair pillowed around her as she lays on her back, naked and drawing in shaky breaths. She’s shiny with sweat, her legs giving an involuntary tremble every few seconds as a lazy grin sits on her face. Bellamy is laying right beside her on his stomach, sticky with exertion and humming with satisfaction._

 _Raven laughs breathlessly, swatting his lower back with her knuckles lightly. “I’m glad we tried that again. After the Dropship…”_

_Bellamy sits up to cock an eyebrow at her. “What?”_

_“Well,” Raven sighs, grin still in place, “I just thought that maybe your reputation had been a little overblown by heartsick girls who didn't know what good in bed actually means.”_

_“Overblown, huh?” Bellamy rolls his eyes. “You were hung up on Finn, probably shouldn’t have slept with you. That doesn’t make me bad in bed.”_

_“Maybe not. But I’m not hung up on Finn anymore.”_

But I’m hung up on Clarke _, he thinks before shaking it off, veering his mind back to focusing on the dark haired girl laying naked in his bed. She gets it though, he can tell when she looks at him that she knows exactly where his mind wanders to and all the secret thoughts he tries to keep to himself._

_“That’s good,” he says softly, rolling to the edge of the bed and sitting up. His head is suddenly flushed, Monty’s moonshine from earlier buzzing through his system. He feels stifled on the bed with Raven, no place to go but to face the inevitable. He reaches down for his pants and starts tugging them on, weighing over the best way to ask Raven to leave. ___

____

_Bellamy feels the bed shifting with Raven’s movements but he’s surprised when she settles behind him, resting her head on his shoulder and pressing her still bare chest against his back. Her long, now untamed hair tickles the skin on his shoulders, her breath hot against his neck as she speaks._

_“I’m not Echo, Bellamy. I’m not expecting anything else from you but this. I know what Clarke was to you and what she’ll always be to you.” Raven moves around him, sitting next to him on the bed, bare thigh pressed against his own. “But it is going to be another two years before we can even think about going back to Earth.” She smiles salaciously at him. “Do you really want to spend the last of your twenties not getting laid, old man?”_

_Bellamy surveys Raven, deciding how serious she is that they can remain casual and that she won’t try to push the confines of what he can offer. He had made a mistake with Echo, dragging her along accidentally while he pretended like he was over Clarke. He didn’t want to make that mistake again, especially with Raven. But, there isn’t a hint in Raven’s demeanor that she’s being duplicitous, that she is planning to ask more from him than what he has left to give._

_“You know,” he says, a grin breaking out on his face, “When you put it that way, it doesn’t seem like there is another option.”_

__

__

_He pulls her in for a kiss, his mouth hot and demanding across her own. He pushes them back onto the bed, moving one arm down to tug his pants back off and then kicked them off his ankles…._

“You know, you’re a real asshole when you wanna be, Blake,” Raven finally says, no bite to her voice. He expects to see Raven looking pissed but instead she looks deflated, all the wind knocked out of her sails. 

The guilt is sharp, making him feel shameful almost instantly as he looks at his friend.

“Raven,” he says softly, reaching out to touch her shoulder but she shrugs him off, holding up a hand. “Raven, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

Raven shakes her head. “I’m trying to help you, Bellamy. Why won’t you let me?”

Bellamy was prepared to deal with an angry, fire breathing Raven once he got her worked up and ready to go. He wasn’t ready for a Raven that looked devastated.

“Raven. Bellamy,” Murphy calls, walking over to them. Murphy surveys Raven, takes in the wet dew collecting in her eyes and the drawn lines on her face, tilting her chin gently to make Raven look at him. Murphy softly strokes Raven’s cheek once then drops his hand, moving his stare to Bellamy, his eyes icy cold. “Is everything okay here?”

“Murphy -”

“Everything is fine,” Raven bites out, the words wobbly but clear. Murphy scoffs but Raven grabs his hands in her own and squeezes. “Really. We’re just having one of our 'raw raw' power talks. Sometimes it gets depressing.”

“Is that right?”Murphy asks, disbelieving, directing the question at Bellamy. 

“Murphy, for fuck's sake, I’m fine. Bellamy is fine -”

“Bellamy hasn’t been fine since you said t-minus 30 days to launch,” Murphy huffed. 

“So, what, you think that coming over here, peacocking like a goddamn idiot, and having a dick measuring contest is the most productive way you can help?”

“No one is measuring dicks,” Murphy says at the same time Bellamy states, “Raven, come on!”

“Enough!” Raven shouts, her harsh tone bringing both guys in line. “Murphy, go back to our room and if you are a good enough little boy I might give you a present later.”

“Raven,” Murphy starts again, hesitant to leave.

“Murphy, go,” Raven says more softly, rolling her eyes. “I’m fine. Bellamy is fine, okay?”

Murphy takes one more lingering look at Bellamy, then nods slowly. “Alright, fine. But you know where I am if you need to restrain Bellamy from the airlock or something.”

“So glad to see after six years that guy is still the same jackass,” Bellamy says, once Murphy is out of sight.

Raven glowers. “Careful, Bellamy. What I can say about Murphy and what you can say about Murphy are two very different things.”

“Point taken,” Bellamy concedes. The fight has flown out of him now, all his bristling fading out to bone tired numbness. He doesn’t want to argue anymore. So, he simply says, “I’m not actually fine, Raven.”

“I know. But I also know when we get to the ground we’re gonna need you just as much as we ever have. And I also know you’re gonna be the guy we need you to be, because you always are. Even at the worst, in the beginning, you were the glue that kept us together. I’m not worried about that. I just want you to know, I’m here. Whatever it is that’s going on in your head, whenever you decide you want to talk about it. I’m here.”

Raven goes to walk away when he puts a hand on her back, stopping her. 

The words are like paste in his throat, but they're also like fire scorching through his belly and carving out holes inside of him. Maybe if he pushes that out the burn will fade.

“It was just…” he starts, licking his lips at the dryness in his throat. “It was like it wasn’t real, as long as we were up here, you know? Maybe she could be alive down there. I could still picture her getting older, see the life we might have when I get back down. I never knew Clarke up here, so being in space it is like I got to remove all the things that remind me of her. And now that we’re going back, it’s like I’m losing her all over again.”

Raven comes to stand next to him again, looking straight ahead down at the Earth they were going back to soon. 

“It'll be okay, Bellamy. We'll get through this, just like we got through the last six years.”

Bellamy nods. 

Raven stays with him, letting the silence give comfort to him, watching the subtle ebb and flow of the ground below them until they're called for dinner. 

 

**_Six years earlier…_ **

**__**

**__**

**_18 days before Praimfaya, Earth_ **

“How's it coming?” Bellamy asks from his chair across the table from her, fiddling with a map of the area.

Clarke sighs, taps the pencil on the table. “Great, just great. I'm the one who decides who lives and dies, right?” 

Bellamy bites his tongue, she's not looking for his comfort right now. 

She's the meticulous one, the one with the mind combing over all the files and cross checking the data. She's weighing the pros and cons, and her face is flat as she does it.

Still, she scrawls Octavia's name at the top of the list. She doesn't look at any pros or cons, weigh her against another person. Her face doesn't flicker but he knows this is a gift to him, and a concession she has allowed herself to the girl she used to be when she first landed on Earth so many months ago.

“Thanks,” he says, throat tight.

Clarke shrugs, “She's the right age and in perfect health for when we need to start repopulating in five years.”

He doesn't argue because its a good argument on the surface, even if the idea that Octavia would willingly go ahead with some type of mandated re-population program is laughable. 

He doesn't mean to drift off when he lays down on the couch, but there's a peace that comes in knowing Octavia is on that list and Clarke is right there across the room from him - safe. 

He doesn't know how long he sleeps but it's the sound of her quiet crying breaking across the silence that wakes him. Bellamy looks at Clarke from the corner of his eye. She looks so young and small. He sits up and the noise draws her attention to him. She's so open, the cool lines of earlier broken wide to the pain underneath. She looks away quickly, hiding. 

He crosses over to the desk, peers at the list from over her shoulder and sees his name at number 99, the slot below it blank.

He scans the list quickly, sees the glaring omission and feels the tension at the back of his throat.

“If I'm on that list, you're on that list,”he manages to get out, because its the safest statement. It still feels like too much, like everything is laid bare and she can see the truth written across his face.

“Bellamy, I can't.” She's desperate, transparent in this small moment. 

“Write it down,” he presses, because he can't even think of surviving without her. “Write it down or I will.”

She looks down at the list and shakes her head, a tear sliding down her cheek. 

He grabs the pen and turns the book to write into the last slot in his blocky handwriting CLARKE GRIFFIN.

He hears her take a shuddering breath, shoulders hunching as the list is completed. They're outside the bunker, Dax dead at their feet. They're at the gates of Arkadia, her eyes haunted. They're on a beach, his face buried in her hair. 

There's a shift between them but he can't quite see the thread just yet to know what's different this time.

“So, what now?” She looks up at him, needs for him to give her guidance. She looks so young, for once the barely eighteen year old girl and not the leader she built around herself.

“Now we put it away and hope we never have to use it.”

And he does hope they don't have to use it, for the sake of their people and for Clarke. He doesn't want the further burden of death on her shoulders, and he knows she would carry this with her just like Mount Weather. 

“You still have hope?” she asks, her lip quivering.

Hope. She's shattered in front of him, her eyes glassy. Yet, he can't help the little burble inside of him when she's in front of him. The swell of something just over the horizon.

“We still breathing?” is the best answer he can give, because he wants to tell her he feels hope brimming inside of him whenever he looks at her. But, that would be too much, too. 

She turns her head, facing downward. He reaches out, touches her shoulder. And she closes her eyes at the contact, places her hand on top of his own. 

She folds into him, her whole body seeming to reach for as much as he's willing to give her. 

There's that hum, the small touch of her hand on his own an electric current sizzling against him. He knows he should pull away, go to his room, put as much distance as he can. 

But, he moves closer instead and kneels down so he's just above her eye level next to her chair. Clarke doesn't hesitate and she's leaning into him, interlocking her arms around his back nearly instantly. He does the same, crushing her against him. He rubs one hand up and down the small of her back while the other comes up to tangle in her hair.

He feels her lips on his shoulder even through the material of his jacket, then they are on the pulse point of his throat, his cheek.

She moves backward so their noses are almost brushing against each other. He can feel her breath hitting his face, he can smell the soap she uses on her skin. 

“Clarke...” It's a warning. _Please, be sure. Please._

She moves a shaky hand to touch his cheek and smiles, small but steady. Then she closes the distant between them and is kissing him, her lips soft and searching on his own. It's a tentative kiss, like she somehow thinks she has to ask for permission.

He moves his hand from her hair to the back of her nape, puts a gentle pressure there as he deepens the kiss. His lips when he kisses her back are sure and hungry, demanding. The first careful touch by Clarke sparking open the want underneath the surface every time he's near her.

She moves her other hand so she's cupping both sides of his face now and she's kissing him back with just as much fervor, her careful exploration gone. Her mouth opens on a shudder against his own, and he slides his tongue in to taste her. She makes a noise in the back of her throat, and the sound vibrates all the way down his body. 

She's moving out of her chair, pushing back into him so he's carefully having to lower himself to the floor with Clarke above him.

He can feel her breasts pressed against his chest, the length of her lithe body weighing on his own.

She moans into his mouth and he feels his body shiver, her hips moving slowly against him. He nearly growls, flipping them over so she's the one pressed into the floor and he's covering her body. She scoots beneath him so her legs can shift and then they're wound around his thighs, the heels of her sneakers pressing insistently down on his body until his groin falls into the valley between her thighs.

He balances his weight on one hand while he slides the other between them to squeeze one of her breasts, his mouth swallowing up the noise she makes. It's too full for him to hold it completely, the pillowy flesh overflowing from his soft grip.

It is getting out of control quickly, but he can't find the restraint in him to stop now that they've started. 

He moans, grinds down against her. She slides a hand down his back to stop and clench into his ass, panting. He tries to take her shirt off, but it gets stuck on her watch and then he's cursing. He pulls back to sit on his knees, pulling Clarke with him by the feet she still has clenched around his waist so she's sitting straddled against him. Clarke shifts, her legs loosening their hold as she sits there looking at him.

It's not long but its enough for the world to come crashing back into focus, enough for some of the blood to recirculate up to Bellamy's brain. Bellamy unravels himself from Clarke, carefully sitting her on the ground in front of him, and stands because he needs to think and Clarke is laying there with kiss swollen lips and hooded eyes.

He extends a hand down to Clarke to help her up but she frowns and stands up on her own.

“Where are you going?” Clarke asks, her voice near a whine. 

“Clarke,” he starts, voice gruff. “I don't know if this is a good idea.”

She's biting on her lip and the quiet of the room stretches between them as he's unsure what she is thinking. Then, she's bridging the space and cupping his face with her hands. 

“You don't think this is a good idea?” she challenges, presses herself again him. She smirks as his breath hitches. “You don't want to do this?”

He swallows, because that's not the problem. Clarke looks at him expectantly and Bellamy weighs out the cost of being honest. The cost of giving her no explanation and walking out of the room. The cost of lying, telling her that no, he doesn't want to do this and she was mistaken. 

But he also weighs out the cost of waiting too long, of not taking a chance because of being scared or unsure. He thinks of Gina, and Lincoln and even Lexa, the cost of their uncertain life and all the people they have lost because of it.

When he looks at it like that being honest seems like the only option. 

“I don't want to be something you regret in the morning because you're hurting, or tired, or need comfort,” he begins, licking his lips and looking directly into her eyes so she knows he means what he is saying. “ Maybe once but… But, I'm not that person anymore.” It physically aches somewhere deep inside of Bellamy to turn her away, but he pushes through. “And you mean too much to me-”

“Shut up,” she commands with no heat, breaking into his speech. “You're an idiot if you think after all the things I've done I'd regret you.”

She's shaking her head still as she lifts up on her tiptoes to leave a light kiss on his lips. She's asking again for permission, her touch tentative and seeking.

“Clarke -”

“Never,” she whispers against his lips, teasing her mouth against his. “Never, Bellamy -”

He crashes his mouth against hers again, the way she said his name absolutely wrecking him. He still wasn't sure if this was a good idea but he couldn't deny himself, anymore.

He pulls on the bottom of her shirt and this time it doesn't catch on her watch when he pulls it over her head. He stills to simply take her in, chest heaving and large, pale breasts nearly spilling over the thread bare material of the Ark issued bra. She's pulling at his own shirt and he lets her tug it over his head.

“You're beautiful, Princess,” he says softly. His eyes catch on two twin scars above her clavicle and he thumbs a finger gently over the raised skin of the flesh there. “So beautiful.”

“You're not so bad yourself,” she quips, eyes dancing. She pulls away from him to step out of her pants. She moves to take off her black underwear but he catches her hand.

“Slow down, Clarke. I'm not in a rush.” His hand glides down the cheek of her ass as he pulls her hand away.

“Oh, I think we've waiting long enough,” she counters coyly, pushing him backward toward the couch. “Don't you think?”

He lands on the cushion of the couch as Clarke straddles herself across his lap. She leans over and kisses him, her mouth hot and seeking. She nibbles on his bottom lip, coaxing his mouth open until he can taste her tongue. He knew she'd be like this, unrestrained. When he had allowed himself to imagine he'd never seen Clarke as shy. She'd always been just like this, demanding what she wanted, commanding her pleasure the way she commands an army.

But she's also sweet, so so sweet and yielding. He can feel her warmth radiating onto him, feel how much she wants him like it is a bodily presence filling the room. 

He snakes a hand into her hair as she kisses him, her hips starting to move against his own. One of her hands have come down to pull at the waistband at his pants and he doesn't stop her this time when she stands up long enough to pull them down and her own.

He is surprised when she sits back down and strokes him a few times, then places him at her entrance.

“Clarke -”

“Please, Bell,” she whines, hovering. “I don't want to wait anymore. We can have everything else later.”

He wants her so badly his hands are nearly shaking and he's already hard, throbbing. He wants to flip her on her back and fuck her until she's incoherent, babbling. He wants to taste her with his tongue until her toes curl. He wants to know what she looks like with her mouth full of him.

But, he wants this, too. God, he wants it so badly. 

“Wait,” he pants, and slips a hand between them to touch her, slip a finger inside. She moans and she's already slick, wet and hot against his hand. He shudders at her heat, circles a thumb around her clit as she presses against him. He starts with small circles against the bud, gentle pressure that builds slowly and makes Clarke keen.

“Bellamy -”

“Shh,” he whispers near her ear, feeling Clarke shudder with the feel of his hot breath. “So, so beautiful.”

She starts moving against him and he moves his thumb faster, his fingers sliding in rhythm out of her as she grinds down against him. He feels the waves about the break around her, her movements turning jerky and stilted. He moves his mouth in a slick, wet slide from her ear down the side of her face, to the nape of her neck. He nips at the skin and that’s when Clarke breaks open, her body shuddering against him and clenching against the fingers he still has inside of her. 

He slowly moves his hand away and Clarke whimpers, slouched against him and eyes hazy. She pulls him to her to kiss him, mouth lazy and slow. Her hand slides between them, wrapping around his cock and moving it up and down. It’s too much, though, he’s too close to the edge already. He grabs her hand with his own and she pulls away from kissing him to look at him questioningly. 

“Later,” he grounds out, and takes himself into his own hands to steer it to her opening.

As soon as the tip is in she glides down on him. She moans, her head tilting back and he shudders. She stays still, adjusting and clenching around him. He unconsciously starts thrusting softly upwards and her eyes snap open to look at him. She puts her hands behind her back and undoes the claps of her bra, her breasts falling free.

He moves his hands to take one in each palm, kneading them. Then Clarke is moving on him. She's grinding her hips up and down, her hands braced around his outer thighs as she closes her eyes and tilts her head backwards. He leans forward and takes one of her nipples in his teeth, working the nub with scrapes and bites. He moves on to the other one and thumbs the wet one with his index finger. Clarke lets out a guttural noise in her throat, moving up and down on him with even more vigor.

“Bell...Bellamy,” she puffs out from between her teeth, and he shudders at what hearing her say his name like that does to him. 

He keeps one hand on her tit, squeezes, his mouth on her other breast, and moves his free hand down to between her thighs to find that bundle of nerves again. When he hits it, strumming his thumb against it, she shivers as she begins to peak again.

“Yeah, baby,” Bellamy groans. “It's okay. Go ahead.”

Her back curls forward as her body spasms, broken moans breaking out of her mouth. He rides the wave with her, moving his hand against her until she's no longer shaking and she's limp against him. 

He kisses her neck softly, her hair, his hips lightly thrusting up. Slowly, she stirs back up to life and begins to move against him again. He stands up, supporting her with his hands under her thighs and keeping them locked together. Then he slowly lowers them so she's sitting on the edge of the couch and he's kneeling on the floor. He hitches one of Clarke's legs up, resting the calf on his shoulder blade. 

He starts moving again, deeper this time and he can tell Clarke is getting worked back up. Her hands are clenching and then relaxing, her mouth lulling open and moving with silent words. Her thighs are pressing against his hipbones, and the heels of her feet are trembling where they are pressed against the back of his thighs. 

He moves a hand to stroke her, moving his thumb in circles.

“God, Bellamy, keep doing that,” she pants out, and he watches her come undone. He's looking at her face the exact moment her orgasm crashes over her, her entire body shuddering and her face clouding over in bliss.

It's enough to get him there and he shatters, calling her name, and then collapses forward on top of her. They're both panting, his body rising and falling with her chest. 

Once he feels like his limbs can move again he drops a kiss on her forehead and carefully withdraws. He doesn't see a towel around so he grabs his shirt from the floor and uses it to clean up Clarke then himself.

He grabs the blanket from the edge of the couch and pulls the cushions from the back of it to make it larger. He takes one of the back cushions and puts it at the head. Him and Clarke end up on the couch, her head pillowed on his chest and the blanket bundled around them. 

“We should have done that a long time ago,” Clarke says, as he drifts off to sleep.

In the middle of the night, near naked and giggling, they duck behind corridors and hide from voices traveling down the hall to get to Clarke's room unseen. When the door closes behind them Clarke is laughing, her face more relaxed than he had seen in a long time, as she clutched her shirt to her chest. 

Bellamy is able to resist for a couple more minutes, just basking in Clarke's rare happiness, before he picks her up off her feet and carries her to bed. 

**_2, 227 days after Praimfaya, Earth_ **

They spot the movement in the brush first and then they're moving in that direction. 

She's dirty, small and her eyes are burning hot. She's shouting at them, her voice snarled and too big for her little body. His Trigedasleng isn't great – even after all those lessons with Echo and Emori - but she's saying something close to stay away from me. 

Harper makes the mistake of trying to reach for her, cooing softly. “It's okay, we're not going to hurt you...”

Then Harper is shouting, clutching her arm as blood starts to drip down.

Bellamy looks at the girl's mouth and there is blood there, too, red and forming a bright ring around her lips. The girl's eyes are darting wildly back and forth, trying to find a way out of the loose circle they'd formed around her.

“It's okay,” Echo says from his left, in Trigedasleng. She's very slowly walking toward the girl with her hands up. “I'm Echo. I'm not going to hurt you.”

The girl relaxes slightly at the use of the familiar grounder language and Bellamy, knowing how disliked Ice Nation was before, is glad Echo was a spy with no trace of her clan left on her body.

Bellamy pushes his luck and moves forward an inch, his hands also up in front of him. “Let us help you,” he says in his awkward pronunciation.

He's sure he's made a mistake when the girl balls up her hands at her side and starts shrinking back but then she looks at him. Really looks at him, as though he's a ghost. She stops completely, becoming still. And she just stares at him, her eyes sweeping across his face.

She whispers something then, but the only word Bellamy understands is man. Then, her knees collapse and Bellamy's just barely able to get there before she topples all the way to the ground. He's standing with her in his arms, feeling his throat tighten at just how light she is, then turns to Echo.

“What did she say?”

“She said 'The man with the face of stars',” Echo answers, her face accessing and serious. “The man with the face of stars.”

 

When the girl awakens later they give her water and offer her a handful of some of the berries they had found. She takes the water and the berries, but shies backwards immediately after. She watches them as they set up tents of fabric near the spaceship and build a couple of fires so they can see as the sun fades out of the sky. 

She doesn't talk to them much and she keeps a certain amount of distance. She stays the closest to his side, still keeping feet between them but never out of his eye sight. 

He waves clothing he got from Raven in front of her and then puts them on the ground between them. He pretends to be busy tending the fire when she darts to the space where he put the clothing and disappears into the brush.

She comes back several minutes later, shifting around awkwardly in the too big clothing, and goes back to where she was before – only feet away from him. 

It's later in the evening that she sits next to him. She reaches out a hand and says again the phrase he knows means 'man with the face of stars'.” She's got a tiny, pocket sized book in her hands and his entire body clenches. He knows that book, knows who it used to belong to years ago. 

His mouth is dry and his lungs feel empty and without air. He takes the book in his hands, runs a finger on the fraying outer edges of the brown leather cover. His hand is shaking as he opens it up and sees the inscription he knew he'd find on the inside page:

_Clarke,  
Draw me something beautiful._

__

__

_Always,  
Bellamy_

He traces the letters with the tips of his hands and he can see her face at the edges of his memory. Her eyes lit up, her smile stretching and open, happy in that blink of time. 

He turns the page and its a drawing of them. It's framed through the window of the rover. He's driving, eyes straight ahead, and she's drawn from the side – her head turned and looking at him.

The next page is a sketch of him sleeping, laying on his back and sprawled out on the couch. It's from when she was making the list. She must have drawn that one from a memory of watching him sleep. Her face is soft, emotion lingering on the corners of her frown. 

The third page is another memory, the two of them leaning against a tree. His face is bloody and his body language is tired. He's looking upward, at the sky. She's shyly looking at him from underneath her eyelashes.

It had felt like so much of their relationship had been him looking at her, hiding what he felt. It was strange to see it from Clarke's perspective, re-framed in the eyes of her trying not to show too much to him. 

She'd had the journal for such a short time, it was astounding how many drawings there were in it. He can only bring himself to look at the first few pages right now. 

He remembers she'd struggled with sleeping that last week. He'd wake-up in the middle of the night to find her huddled in a corner of the room, dying candle next to her, slumped over the journal.

He's crying but he doesn't realize until he feels small fingers touching his cheek. He looks up and sees the girl sitting close to him now, hand on his face where the tears are falling.

“It's okay,” she says to him in Trigedasleng.

“Can I keep this?” he asks, being careful with his word construction. Sometimes he messed up the verbs and nouns or used the wrong tense.

She seems to understand, though, and nods. “It was already yours.”

Bellamy swallows the lump in his throat and tucks the small journal into his jacket. 

He doesn't see Echo walking up to them so he's startled when she sits on the log across from them. She's looking at the girl, passively, the way he used to watch Echo look at another warrior before she attacked. 

“Echo...” he warns, knowing how cold and logical she could be if she felt there was a threat. He wasn't sure what exactly she thought the little girl could do...

“It's okay, Bellamy,” she assures him, and tries to smile. “I just want to know where she found the journal.” This time when she smiles, its sympathetic. “Don't you?”

Bellamy was instantly humbled, realizing that they might be on the Earth again but this time Echo's loyalty was to them. He was the people she was trying to protect and help. He also knew just by looking at her if he wanted to let it drop, if he never wanted to have to set eyes on Clarke's remains then she would let it go.

The idea of seeing tangible proof, of holding it in his arms, made him feel queasy and off balance. 

But the idea of Clarke out there somewhere, not buried and out in the open hurt even more. She deserved a proper burial. It was the only thing left that he could give her. 

“Yes,” he rasped out. “Yes, I want to know.”

 

_**2,228 days after Praimfaya, Earth, Becca's Island** _

The little girl they found half mad and covered in dirt leads him to Clarke's body the next day. She had extended her hand out to him after they had broken down camp and gathered supplies, eyes hesitant and inquisitive. Instinctively, he knew what she was asking for and plucked the journal from his jacket to place in her hands. 

Her child hands clutched around the leather journal as she lead them now through the forest and across patches of water, holding it like a talisman that would bring them to their destination.

“Keep up,” she had shouted in her native tongue before darting ahead of them. 

It was a familiar path, but it was also foreign after the destruction of Praimfaya and six years left to settle in the aftermath. Still, he knows she is bringing them to the Island early on in their journey. The others behind him are struggling to keep up with their pace, the little girl wild and moving fast through the woods while Bellamy stays on her heels.

The message the girl was sending them was clear: Keep up or get left behind.

He expects to end up at the lab, so he's surprised when she veers off to the left of it and out toward the woods again. 

They come to the mouth of an old cave, tucked away behind the overhang of old willow trees. Walking through the gate of the cave he feels nauseous, blinks rapidly because he swears he sees himself in the rocket closing the doors. He can feel the rumble of take off in his chest at they leave, feel the weight of his choice even as he gravity pulls away from them. He blinks it away, clearing his head, his eyes scan for Clarke. 

The little girl keeps moving forward, taking them deeper into the belly of the cave, so the air grows denser and the walls of rocks slick with persperation.

When he finally sees her again, after six years, it is like the bottom falls out. Her body is crumbled over against the corner of a wall, long dried splatters of blood around her torso and stuck to the messy cascade of blonde hair falling around her face out of her braid. Her arms are outstretched, the knuckle of the bones white and pointed outward, as if she was reaching for the rocket. As if she could reach them if she only tried hard enough.

Her helmet is discarded, broken glass on the front and tossed into the corner. 

He kneels beside her frame, pulling the fragile pile of bones against his chest. There's no skin, no rotted flesh left. Just the white of the bones, the underneath of her shell. She smells like decay and blood, but he holds her tighter still. He hears crying and then distantly realizes the noise is coming from him.

The others pile into the cave and find him that way, on the ground cradling Clarke's skeleton and weeping a death that was six years old. He feels shifting next to him on both sides then there are arms holding him. He protests at first because he thinks they mean to take her away from him, but they speak soothing words he doesn't really hear and then relaxes in their hold.

When he comes back to them he's not surprised to find Raven and Monty serving as his anchors to the world, their arms bands of support around him. Echo is eyeing him sympathetically from a chair while Harper tries to avoid eye contact. Murphy is sitting beside Raven, not quite as close to him as Raven and Monty but offering his steady support.

The girl they had found is sitting in a corner of the room, watching them warily. 

He stands up with Clarke in his arms, trembles at how light bones feel compared to flesh and life. 

Raven stands up, eyes wide, beside him. “Bellamy, let's find a place to put these down, okay?”

Monty also stands with Murphy following, the both of them nodding and watching him carefully.

Echo shifts in her seat. “I think that's a... a good idea,” she offers carefully. 

“No,” Bellamy says firmly, clenching his jaw. “No, I'm going to bury her.”

He can tell they want to protest or argue with him to wait until morning, when he'd have daylight on his side again. But he can't do that, Clarke has waited long enough.

Somehow they know he wants to be alone, so they leave him to walk off into the oncoming darkness with Clarke still in his arms and a shovel they find back at the lab. The little girl follows behind, trailing at a distance, but he doesn't mind.

He walks until it feels right, settling for a patch in the woods near a large Oak tree. He sets Clarke down against the tree, the bones making a sickening noise as they bumped together. 

The thick, old branches of the tree sprawl upward, gnarled, toward the sky. He can hear her voice here, see her eyes as she offers him forgiveness. 

Every dig into the ground seems to shake loose another moment, another memory, one more thing he's lost and will never get back. 

By the time he's done digging the grave his shirt is sticking to him from the perspiration and the hour is late. Still, somehow, the others know its time and seem to emerge from the darkness of the tree line to stand around him. All of them.

He thought he had wanted to do this all alone, but after six years together they all knew better. He saw their drawn faces, the streaks of tears on cheeks, and he also realized he wasn't the only one who needed to say goodbye.

He picks Clarke up, closes his eyes and tries to see her – really see her – not just the cloth and bones that was left behind. 

“I love you. I will always love you. I'm so sorry,” he whispers in her ear, praying that she can hear him. “I'm so sorry.”

With tired muscles and a weary mind Bellamy begins to crouch down to place her in the grave.

“WAIT!” Raven begs, moving over to him. “Wait, I-I want to say goodbye.”

There are other murmurs and then the six of them are all standing around Bellamy, taking their turn saying things to Clarke. Some of them he had heard before, when they'd all had too much to drink and were feeling sorry for themselves. Others, he was surprised at and shouldn't have been, knowing all of them so well.

“Thank you for giving me more time with Emori,” Murphy says sincerely, touching the shoulder of Clarke's skeleton. “You saved my life, too. But that's the gift I can't forget you for even if I wanted to try.”

Echo talked about how she hoped to someday be the kind of leader for her people that Clarke would have been. 

“To be the kind of woman deserving of the kind of devotion you inspire,” Echo finished, eyes flashing briefly to Bellamy's before looking away.

Monty and Harper didn't say much at all besides thank you, but it was hard to tell who was supporting the other up they were both weeping so hard remembering their long gone friend.

Raven was the last the come up to Clarke, her mouth set in a tight line. “Hey, Clarke.” She gives a wobbly smile, as though her and Clarke are just having a conversation. “I never got to tell you before but I'd pick you first, too. I'd pick you first, too.” 

Bellamy waits until they all nod before lowering Clarke again into the grave, setting her down gently. He considers for a minute asking the girl for the journal back so he can lay it to rest with Clarke. Lock away all the emotions it stirs up inside of his already tumultuous insides. Bellamy decides again it, though, and is the first to let a pile of dirt tumble from his hand to cover Clarke's remains.

One by one all of them do the same, gently letting the dirt cascade down into Clarke's grave. Then, Murphy starts dropping shovels of dirt while the others carefully push some in with their feet. 

They all stand their quiet for a long time, lost in their own thoughts and memories.

Bellamy gave up hope for things like an afterlife for himself, after all he had done. He figures there is no use in hoping for that, because he doesn't think with all the blood on him he'll get into heaven, anyway. But he sure hopes there is a heaven and that Clarke is there right now, looking down on them. He hopes Clarke knows – somehow, somewhere – that she had been loved and was still loved. 

That even all these years later she had touched the lives of these people, of him, forever. 

He stays behind while the rest of them trickle off to find a bed in the Mansion, deciding to settle at the island for a few days before going to look for the bunker.

Raven touches his shoulder before she leaves, offering him a reassuring smile. Then its just him, Echo and the little girl hovering at the edge.

Echo comes to stand beside him and hold his hand, her fingers squeezing tightly. 

“One of the border clans has a saying,” she begins slowly, her words deliberate. “I heard it once when I was sent to spy on them for Queen Nia. I didn't understand, really, what it meant back then... 

“What's the saying?” Bellamy asks, squeezing her hand tighter.

“Hodnes ste nowe odon.”

Bellamy blinks and tries to work out the translation.

“Love is never done?”

Echo snorts but also nods. “Yes. These translations are crude, don't always capture the nuisance of the saying.”

But Bellamy doesn't agree, not really. It's simple and boiled down but he knew exactly what it meant, all the nuisance of it. How could he not? It was six years after the death of the woman he loved and here he still was at her grave site, mourning her, missing her...

“Hodnes ste nowe odon,” he repeats under his breath, the words carrying off into the distance. 

**_Somewhere without place or time..._ **

Past the dark sky and clouds, beyond the old Space Station, the globe of the Earth, the orbiting Sun and the outstretching cosmos... In the in-between of the universe, where it is ethereal and timeless, and the heavens are an encompassing paradise between the beautiful of all the worlds in all the universes.

In the heavens, surrounded by true happiness and contentment, a warrior paces restlessly, face scrunched, and eyes slivers of contemplation. Her breath gushes out of her in little huffs of frustrating.

The sun is a soft warmth on her face, the courtyard she is standing in made of marble and white stone that seems to radiate the light. There are others coming and going around her, faces filled with peace and voices light with joy.

“How much longer will you take?” she hisses out, garnering stares of people passing, watching the warrior frantically pace. 

“You need to calm down,” the darker skinned man next to her cautions. “We know it is coming. As soon as he says the words, it will be the opening.”

She stops, scowling as she looks at him. “It's been a lifetime!”

“It's been a little over six years,” he says easily, long passed being bothered by his companion's temperament. “We can wait a little longer.”

She sighs again, clenching her hands into fists. She had thought the violence in her blood would drain from her body in a place like this, where the need for fighting and anger was a distant memory of corporal times. But the task at hand has left her restless and her mood foul, even in this paradise. 

“Yes,” she groused, eyes staring off unseeing – as though she could will Bellamy to work faster – as she clenched down on her teeth, “Yes, we will wait. It is all we can do.”

**Author's Note:**

> I really don't want to spoil too much, but just know this story is going to have more of showing Bellamy/Clarke before her death in this alternate timeline. Also, this story isn't about Bellamy moving on after Clarke's death. This isn't what this story is going to be about at all. 
> 
> Come on this journey with me!


End file.
